A Glimpse into the Mystic Vision of Vadalur Baba

There was a mystic sadhu who lived in a garbage pile in the remote village of Mettukuppam in South India. We called him Vadalur Baba, as that was the name of the nearest city, and that city at one point in time had the famous ashram and residence of his guru saint Vallalar (1823 – 1874).

Whenever I would go to visit Vadalur Baba he would tell me things he saw me do far away, in specific detail, which no one could have known. Sometimes he would ask me questions about why I was doing something he had seen me do (months before and far away). I came to understand he had a mystic vision where he could see things connected to people who come near him.

One of the early times I went to see Vadalur Baba he was in his pile of garbage as usual. While I was about to leave he took an old plastic bottle from the garbage that looked filthy, gave it to me and told me I should go to saint Vallalar’s siddhapeetham next door and fill it with water from a government water tap outside in the field (which is basically water that runs through open canals). I went to fill the water as instructed and came back to him. He said carry that water with you and drink it as you go home.

We got in the car and began the long drive back to Chennai. About 30 minutes later I told the devotees I was with that the bottle was really unclean, coming from a garbage pile, and before hand it had some liquid in it for perhaps months, which could cause any type of sickness. In addition to that, the water was from an unfiltered government water tap, which you usually need to filter or boil, otherwise you can get typhoid. So I said we need to be practical and we shouldn’t actually drink the water, we can instead pour the water to a tree so the water isn’t wasted.

We stopped the car, went to the side of the road, found a nice plant, and I poured out the bottle of water that Vadalur Baba told me to drink. We didn’t think anything about it again for many months.

Six months later we again went to visit Vadalur Baba. As soon as he saw me, without saying anything else he asked, “Why didn’t you drink the water?”

The devotee who came with me didn’t remember I had poured the water out, so he replied, “What do you mean? There was no water that I know about. I don’t understand what you are talking about.”

Again Vadalur Baba repeated, “Why didn’t you drink the water?”

The devotee replied, “I don’t know what you are talking about.” He really had no idea, as it had happened six months prior.

A third time Vadalur Baba again said, “Why didn’t you drink the water?”

The devotee with me had no clue what he was talking about, but I remembered and was kind of sitting quietly embarrassed. After he asked three times, it was clear he wasn’t going to leave us, so I said, “We’re sorry, the devotee doesn’t remember, but you gave me a bottle of water to drink, and I poured it out to a tree because I thought we would get sick.”

Then Vadalur Baba said, “This time, fill up the water and make sure you all drink it.”

And that’s what we did. We understood we had made a mistake, and he wanted us to drink the water from the siddhapeetham of Saint Vallalar to purify us. This time we filled up a bottle of water and each of us drank it.

Even though it had happened six months prior, and I had poured the water out 30 km away from there, still he knew I poured the water out. He remembered it for 6 months and wouldn’t let us change the topic till we answered why we had poured out the water he wanted us to drink.

That was just one example of him displaying a link to the cosmic consciousness where he could see and know anything about people just by looking at them. I have seen him do this dozens of times, both to myself and to other people visiting him.

Rare Video of Vadalur Baba

One of the only videos of the mystic sadhu Vadalur Baba, recorded the day he foretold that he would enter samadhi (on Amalaki Ekadashi in March of 2022), just a few hours before leaving. Here he is sitting next to the room where his guru Vallalar dissolved his body into light in 1874.

Prior to leaving Vadalur Baba informed people that he was going to leave on this particular day and gave instructions for how to make his samadhi.

As far as I know there are only two videos of him, this one and another short clip from one of the trips when I went to meet him. On that trip one of the devotees accidentally recorded him before knowing that he did not like to be recorded.

Vadalur Baba never went outside of his sitting area under a shamee vriksha tree, an area which resembled a garbage pile, and he never allowed anyone to come within 20 feet of him. This video is the only time I am seeing him sitting close to other people, and even allowing someone to touch him.

When the great saints know they are leaving, they become more compassionate to people. In his regular dealings he would never even let people hand an object to him directly. He would tell them to put it on the ground, and with a long stick he would pick it up, after telling them to back away. He was extremely strict about this. But here on his final day of presence he gave up the restrictions and allowed his devotees to come close and even to touch him.

The following is the only other video recording of Vadalur Baba, that I had mentioned earlier:

This video was recorded by my friend on one of our visits to him on November 10, 2017. It was very late in the night, and Vadalur Baba was about to eat something a devotee had brought him. I believe it is a mirchi pakora.

The words he speaks are in the following context. He was explaining how all the foods in human society have been intentionally polluted to reduce the health of the population. At that point the recording starts and the next words spoken are as follows:

“Jaggery is not much of a health hazard to the human body. But these sesame seeds made out of this jaggery [chikki] are not good for the human body. They have included [hazardous poisons] in every food product of the human being. No one can escape from their attack. Excluding those who are on the path of Godhead.”